More About Maria Chapman

Someone posted this on the adoption boards tonight. I wanted to share it all with you. What a sweet story...

This question was asked of the Chapmans:

What inspired you and Mary Beth to adopt again?

Chapman: That's another crazy story! God has far more redemptive tricks up his sovereign sleeve than I've ever imagined. We met Maria on an earlier trip to China where she was staying with an American family, and I fell in love with her. Before the trip, we said we were done adopting and that our house was full, but God just made it really clear that we were to do so once again. Here's the real clincher: I asked the family if I could hold her when we were at church and when I did, I asked if she was their daughter. They said no, but they were praying about a family for her. I asked if her name, Maria, had any significance, since that was an odd name for a baby in China, but they said they just thought it was pretty. I immediately thought back to the song "Who's Gonna Love Maria?" I'd written ten years ago when one of my kids went to school with a girl named Maria. She came from a rough home and told stories of her dad being in jail, and sure enough that line "Who's Gonna Love Maria?" just started blaring in my head. I immediately thought, No, not me, but I just realized arguing with God is a really dumb thing to do. Long story short, we're adopting Maria and we're looking forward to starting the beginning of yet another new chapter!